


Second Rite

by Samuraiter



Category: Sailor Moon - All Media Types
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2017-12-31 23:59:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1037927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samuraiter/pseuds/Samuraiter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Searching for the calmness at the center of herself leads Sailor Mars to the side of a former enemy, as well as to a number of unanswered questions that have long been hiding in plain sight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Rite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampirePaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/gifts).



> This is a rather mythic take on this pairing, full of ideas and speculation, pulling bits and pieces from different versions of canon to paint a picture of what might be.

Hino Rei had not intended for her meditation to turn into a summoning, but she had been reaching for the darkness at the heart of the flame, the point of perfect stillness that helped her reach the center of herself, and there had been a presence there that she had not detected before – sleeping, she sensed, spinning a cocoon of dreams around itself. At first, she doubted, suspecting a trap like those Nehelenia had set, but the presence had no malevolence to it, only a calm humanity touched by traces of a magic Rei did not recognize, a magic that resonated as soon as she made contact.

Another Sailor Senshi, then, and that prompted Rei to reach into the darkness, take the other person by the hands, and use all of her soul to _pull_ until she emerged. And emerge she did, passing from nothingness back into the realm of the physical. Rei, breaking her trance, felt her breath seize as she realized the nature of her rescue, for before her lay a comatose Karasuma Akane – Sailor Lead Crow, her bracelets intact. Despite that, she seemed drained of all her strength, too feeble to do anything more than lay on the floor, still unconscious, though alive and no longer missing.

The big question that immediately faced Sailor Mars – she had transformed as soon as she discovered that one of her enemies lay on the floor before her – seemed simple: Did she inform Sailor Moon of this development? Usagi had the ability to destroy the bracelets, and, by extension, to destroy the enemy. And yet ... Sailor Lead Crow had been rendered defenseless, had so little energy in her body that she barely registered as a spark to Rei. She deserved to live, if only long enough for her to answer all of the questions that the other Sailor Senshi seemed certain to have at the ready.

Rei discerned a subtle change in her surroundings, a familiar sense of being observed. The crows, Phobos and Deimos – above her, their eyes glinting in the darkness outside the light cast by the fire. She had been aware of their empathy before, and it had helped her several times, but ... she had never told the others of them, and the impression that she received from the two familiars suggested that she did not need to share her discovery, either. Did they voice a kinship to the enemy Sailor Senshi, or – ? She had to determine _that_ answer for herself, and for none other.

* * * *

Three days had passed. Akane lay in the bed that Rei normally used for herself, still unconscious, though her breathing and color had both improved. Several incidents had occurred in the intervening period, and Rei had been summoned by the others as Sailor Mars, but Phobos and Deimos had continued to serve as sentries for their kinswoman, standing guard as their mistress departed to handle the next monster, the next threat. Their influence seemed to increase as the hours passed, their empathy preventing either Grandpa or Yuuichirou from noticing that they had a guest in the house.

Rei had been tempted to link her charge to the most recent spate of incidents, but the newest enemy had no affiliation to anything but the remnants of Chaos – as had been the case in the three years since the purification of Sailor Galaxia and the end of the siege of Earth by the Sailor Senshi she had corrupted. Try as she might, she could not bring herself to distrust Akane. They had fought before, but Rei had learned enough about her during those encounters to understand that, aside from the curse of Chaos, they had both been Sailor Senshi, not all that different from each other.

Sailor Aluminum Siren and Sailor Lead Crow had been both rivals and friends, had they not? Not so different from Rei and Usagi. The other Sailor Senshi serving alongside them may have been similar, but all of them had been defeated and destroyed. Rei still had Usagi, her best friend. Who did Akane have? Had time been suspended for her in that prison, that black hole she had called into being that had then consumed her? ... Could Rei have become like her if her powers had failed her, if she had been separated from the others and forced to fight alone? The questions continued to pile up.

They had to be answered. Akane had to be awakened, and she had to be released from the bracelets ... if that could be done without killing her. Usagi had great power, but it could easily obliterate Sailor Lead Crow instead of purifying her. Rei had to act on her own, had to follow the suggestions that Phobos and Deimos provided, had to get the answers she needed before she informed the others. She asked herself if her reasoning might be impaired, but she had learned, long ago, that she had to trust her intuition if reason seemed inadequate. Usagi had taught her that lesson.

* * * *

Meditation again, seated in front of the fire. This time, instead of seeking the center of herself, Rei sought to act as a true medium and initiate a mind-to-mind contact. Her eyes closed, she reached again for the consciousness of the person who lay before her, hoping to part the veil instead of merely brushing her fingers across it and taking hold of its edges. Instead of pulling, she _pushed_ , and the patterns dancing behind her eyelids resolved themselves into a landscape, half there, half not. She had to take care, for she ran the risk of the connection to her body being jeopardized, possibly cut.

Clarity increased as she drifted from one landmark to the next, and she recognized that the stars had different positions, that multiple moons drifted across the night sky, reflecting the light of a sun she had never seen. Underneath it, she sensed emptiness, cold and dark, as of death. _This is a memory of a world that no longer lives._ Her thought, or – ? Three figures emerged from the rust-red gloom, two of them silhouettes. She recognized Sailor Lead Crow, the one she had come to see. And the others? _Sailor Phobos, Sailor Deimos. My sisters, your guardians._ Not crows in the least.

Akane elaborated, standing so close to Rei in the non-space that Rei could see only her eyes, so like her own, _They came to Earth at the start of the Sailor Wars – potential Sailor Senshi escaping a planet that I, a full Sailor Senshi, had been compelled to betray. You attracted them, and they bonded themselves to you ... to guide you, shepherd you, help your powers blossom. They continue to exist without a planet because they have you to protect._ A question, unspoken. What did Sailor Lead Crow have, then? No planet, no companions – nothing at all, as Rei had long realized.

 _Then I can do the same for you,_ she responded, reaching for the other Sailor Senshi, the sensation of contact causing light to fill her surroundings. She could feel a sense of acceptance that words did not suffice to describe, and she could feel, too, the empathy of Phobos and Deimos blossoming into a different feeling, as if it had been awakened into a new and different form. Rei then felt a gentle _push_ returning her to her body, and she realized that she had succeeded in her mission, but there remained a thread of light – of _contact_ – linking her to the others that no distance could extinguish.

* * * *

Everything had happened quickly after that. Akane had awakened, the bracelets had dissolved into nothingness, and both she and Rei had found themselves in the company of two young girls who had named themselves as the very Sailor Phobos and Sailor Deimos that Akane had suggested. One person could be kept a secret, but not three, and that had led to a relatively complicated meeting of all the Sailor Senshi and a great deal of negotiation. Usagi, to her credit, accepted the newcomers without hesitation, including the very Sailor Lead Crow she had once fought.

Except ... she had ceased to be that person, and, through all of it, Rei had a peculiar sense that she and Akane had formed a bond she had never experienced before. For all intents and purposes, by accepting her as she had, she had practically christened her as a second Sailor Mars, opening a door that none of her friends had anticipated. And what did that make Karasume Akane? Another friend? A sister, as Rei had decided Phobos and Deimos must be? As head of the new Mars Team, she turned that question over and over in her mind as month followed month, mission followed mission.

After the defeat of the enemy leader, after the coming of the brief calm phase that always preceded the next incident, she had her answer, the one Akane had been patiently waiting for her to discover, and Usagi, acting in her capacity as the leader of the Sailor Senshi, offered to marry them when they became ready. They decided, on the spot, that, instead of them all being sisters, they should adopt Phobos and Deimos as their daughters, and the former crows did not object. Rei suspected that they had been planning for that since the beginning, and she did not object, either.

At the ceremony, though only the briefest of words passed between them in the physical world, Rei could hear, echoing across the bond that she had formed between the two of them on that night, _This is a new and different world. You told me of Crystal Tokyo, but that was only one future. What you and I are making together will make up for everything Chaos has done to all of us, I promise._ A vision of the red planet, of Mars, green spreading across its surface, its new guardians shepherding its rebirth, raindrops falling upon soil that had been dead since the Silver Millennium.

When the first Sailor Mars kissed the second, it sealed a multitude of promises.

 **END**.


End file.
